


Weight of the World

by pimpbuttons



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-07
Updated: 2013-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-04 13:00:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/711039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pimpbuttons/pseuds/pimpbuttons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buttons gave me this lovely prompt about Thorin and gold, and I was struggling with it so I took a little break to do a little writing exercise about the Ur family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weight of the World

Sometimes it was all just too much.

Maybe I could have handled it, if either one of them dealt with things in a healthy way, or even just, you know. Dealt with things at all.

But Bombur never cracked. He never slumped over the table or leaned against the wall smoking a sad, wilted fag and let the exhaustion creep into his eyes. Bombur was always on top of things and nothing was wrong, and it just made me feel like so much more of a pathetic fuck when I couldn’t deal with my life.

And Bifur, god love him, was happy as a clam most of the time. I still don’t know how aware he is. I mean, Bifur was always strong, happy. He made it through the tough times well as anyone. But that’s not the same as just not _seeing_ them and that’s what seemed to be happening. And then every once in a while it would be like he remembered everything at once and he’d go on these great weepy jags and sign things like ‘dragon’ and our aunt and call us by our dwarrow names, make these weird little monuments to the lost and pray the old mourning songs.

It was just a lot. It was just a lot to be the only one in that house who was trying to be constructive, trying to acknowledge the problems and fix them and that’s how I found myself in the bar.

I knew I had fought with Bombur. One of the dramatic rows where I’d find myself the only one yelling, just to get a rise out of him, and he’d just slam down his ladle or his kettle and storm off and I’d end up feeling like a tool no matter what we’d been arguing over. Luckily, the details were getting hazier for me, helped under the bridge by a steady draught of mule piss the innkeep called ale. It wasn’t anything much different than usual. Is it so wrong to have to vent a bit, when your life is shit and you’ve got nothing? When you work all day, and the smile on your face is all you’ve got? Nobody can smile all the goddamn time, and I’m exhausted from trying.  
I drank a little more and leaned my fist on the brim of my hat and took a deep breath. Nothing was going to get resolved tonight, but if I could feel better with smoke in my lungs and a belly of brew then I’d do what I could.

Their voices started low, a sort of peripheral in the fog and the din, but I started to pick out words like ‘toymaker’, and I turned my ear to listen.

And then the words got ugly and I stood, face flushed and at the end of a chewed, worn tether.

“Oi.”

They turned.

“Somethin’ to say, lads?”

They laughed, and moved to turn back to their table and carry on. I might have let them.

But one put his fist to his forehead, the thumb jutting out like an axe handle, and babbled a stream of gibberish, tongue lolling fat in his mouth.

And the next thing I knew, he was off his stool and under my knee, and I was cutting knuckles on his teeth.

I woke up in a cell, sleeping off a massive banger of a headache, curled up around the bruises on my side that rat bastard’s chums had managed to leave on me. There was a voice coming down the corridor. Two voices. A guardsman, explaining the bails and bonds.

“Yes, yes, I’m well aware,” clipped the second voice, a prim thing, obviously unhappy to be here. “it’s not my first walk in the woods, I’m afraid.”

The guardsman harrumphed and led them past, and I watched them go by. Some lovely dwarf, white hair all done up in intricate braids. Nobility. Probably here to pick up a tween who got cheeky with a merchant or tried to shoplift for a thrill. I listened to him stop a few blocks down, listened to the strain and care in his shrill lectures. That was the voice of someone who would yell and scream, and be there when they needed him. The voice of someone who wouldn’t ignore problems.

I learned the captive’s name was Nori, and I was surprised as they led them past to see he was grown. The white-haired dwarf glanced once at me, in my filth and my glowering envy, and moved on.

I shifted to a more comfortable position on the crusty bedroll and waited. There would be no bail for me. There would be soup, when I got home, and quiet acceptance. Bifur would say something angry in iglishmek and I would realize for the umpteenth time in as many weeks how easy it is to ignore, when I’m tired, when I’m not afraid of hurting feelings. Bombur would not ask me where I’ve been. He would smile and act as if I hadn’t been gone.

I slid my flute out of my dingy vest and took a cloth to it to clean the spittle from inside, the vestiges of songs once played, never replicated quite the same way twice. And when the flute was clean I’d put it to my lips and find my voice again, find the part of me that speaks to children and can smile through the pain. And I’d be there for my brother, and my cousin, and I’d bear the weight of problems for them so they could go on pretending. And my family would work again, for a little while. A little while at a time.

**Author's Note:**

> -pimp


End file.
